Indiana controversy should be instructive

If Indiana’s headline-making Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not intended to be a license to discriminate, we’re not sure exactly what it does accomplish.

If Michigan’s proposed religious freedom law is not intended to give legal cover for companies to do business with some people while refusing service to others, then what is its purpose? What would it do? Why is it needed?

The controversy erupting over the passage of a religious freedom law in Indiana and the near passage of another one much like it in Arkansas should be instructive to Michigan legislators.

Businesses don’t like these laws. In Indiana, businesses like Eli Lilly and Levi Strauss & Co. have spoken out against the bill. In Arkansas, when the bill reached the governor’s desk, Wal-Mart urged him not to sign it. As of Wednesday, he said he would not.

And the previous version of the law proposed in Michigan drew objections from chambers of commerce across the state, including the Detroit Regional Chamber.

While lawmakers last year were pushing this bill, businesses instead were pushing in the other direction. They formed an organization known as the Michigan Competitive Workforce Coalition, urging sexual orientation and gender identity be added to Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Companies like AT&T, Blue Cross, Consumers Energy, Dow Chemical and Google are founding members of that coalition.

Why? They argue the state’s economic growth relies on attracting talented, hard-working people from all segments of society. Economic growth relies on simple fairness.

In Michigan last year, the proposal died in the Senate after winning the approval of the state House of Representatives. This year, the law was quickly reintroduced by Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, as Senate Bill 4.

The bill would allow a person or business to claim a “sincerely held religious belief” as a defense if the state came after them for refusing services that conflict with those beliefs.

And refusing to provide catering or flowers for a same-sex marriage is the example that is frequently used to illustrate the law.

Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act has protected against this kind of discrimination since the 1970s when it comes to race, sex, marital status and national origin. Yet sexual orientation and gender identity have never been added.

It’s worth noting that the Elliot-Larsen law protects against discrimination based on religion.

Republicans in control of Michigan’s Legislature said in this past election — and in multiple previous elections — that their emphasis this session would be on reviving the state’s economy. Gov. Rick Snyder said that, too. While the economy is recovering, they said, there is still much work to do.

So lawmakers now have a clear choice. They can continue to pursue a social agenda that appears to be a thinly veiled effort to allow for discrimination against the gay and lesbian community under the guise of religious freedom, or they can listen to the business community and do what works for the economy.